Let’s Rock: Ars Technica’s live Apple event coverage

Ars Technica is on the scene in San Francisco for Apple's September special …

-Steve Jobs says thanks, it's over! Check Infinite Loop for hands-on with the new iPods! -Jack Johnson is getting a standing ovation -Music is done, Steve Jobs is back -There's a guy in the camera pit dancing to the music -Playing another song -Song is over, Jack Johnson is thanking Steve Jobs, thanking iTunes -(Made a few clarifications/fixes to what was typed below) -Jack Johnson now performing -Special guest today is Jack Johnson -"Whenever we have a music event, we like to remind ourselves why we do it" -We appreciate the chance to share this with you this morning (sez Steve) -"Strongest lineup of iPods we've ever had for holiday season '08"

-Software is available this Friday for both iPhone and iPod touch -Backing up to iTunes is dramatically faster, less crashing -Significantly improved battery life, fewer call drops, fixed a lot of bugs -New software for iPhone too, 2.1

-Free update for iPod touch users from 2.0, $9.99 from 1.x -New iPod touch comes with new version of software, 2.1 -All models are available today. Now playing new iPod touch ad

-3 models: 8GB for $229, 16GB for $299, and 32GB for $399 -"The funnest iPod ever" -- Yes, he said funnest, and so did the slide -Environmentally, checklist looks like nano. Arsenic-free glass, BFR-free, mercury-free, PVC-free, highly recyclable -"Battery life is astounding" 36 hours of music, 6 hours of video -Steve Jobs is back to round up iPod touch stuff. "Works with the new headphoens coming out next month" -"Transport a... package... across town" -Demoing an EA game coming out later this year, Need for Speed (coming out for all platforms including iPod touch and iPhone at the same time) -Now demoing Gameloft, "Real Soccer 2009" brand new game shipping today -"Animations and graphics and interactivity is just incredible!" -Demoing Spore specifically for the iPod touch (Spore Origins), just released the other day -Inviting Phil Schiller on stage to give a demo of games that are not yet out on the market -Now demoing iPod touch features -App Store available in 62 countries now, all available on iPod touch -About 700 games on the App Store today -"This is mind-blowing!" Launched only 60 days ago -App Store: users have downloaded over 100,000,000 applications

-When you're panning/shuffling in a song, a genius icon will appear, just tap it and it'll save it into your Genius playlist -Software is all built in for Nike, don't need to plug in the Nike receiver like on the nano, it's all built-in -UI is "even nicer than it has been," also built in Nike+iPod -Genius playlist creation, App Store built-in -built-in speaker like on the iPhone, "really hard for something this thin, for casual listening" -Integrated volume controls into the side like on the iPhone -New iPod touch has same 3.5" display, even thinner (looks tapered, stainless steel on back, just like schematics) -Unlike anything in the marketplace, well for holiday season we're making it even better -Let's move onto iPod touch: iPod touch is an "incredible product"

-Showing new iPod nano ad -Also have new in-ear headphones, sell for $79 in October, "we think we really got it right this time" -New headphones are $29 next month -Back side has microphone which works great with voice recording app -Also has volume controls up & down, all right from headphone cable -New headphones have a little thing on the cable like from the iPhone, if you double click it, goes to next song, single click pause, triple click previous song -Shipping today, 8GB should be in stock next few days, 16GB available next weekend, "early next week at the latest" -$149 for 8GB of memory, second model 16GB at $199 -huge range of colors (silver, indigo, blue, lime green, yellow, orange, red, magenta)

-nano-chromatic, "best colors we've ever done" -New iPods are looking great: arsenic-free glass, BFR-free, mercury-free, PVC-free, highly recyclable -We want to be really environmentally sensitive with these products, biggest thing we worry about are the toxics, we use an internal environmental checklist -That's it for the iPod nano! Great new features, great battery life, "24 hours for music, 4 hours for video" -Shake to shuffle (awesome) -- if you want to skip to the next song, just shake the nano -Software extras that are "normally" shipped (voice recorder, calendar), now demoing -Turn it sideways and see full-size album art, see photos in landscape mode, video -Can create Genius playlists from the nano itself without connecting to iTunes -What are some of the feature? Curved aluminum, curved glass over display, thinnest iPod ever, enhanced UI, accelerometer from iPhone/iPod touch and brought it to the nano -The one he's showing is silver metal with a black wheel -"Thinnest iPod we've ever made," oval shape, fits in "beautifully" with the line of first/second gen portrait mode -New iPod nano for holiday season: tapered, has a black wheel, looks just like the rumors -Shipped first nano 3 years ago, then second and third gen, became very popular -iPod classic: discontinuing thick and just going with thin (no one buys the thick): upgrading to 120GB for $249

-Now talking about updates and new products for holiday season -Over 5,000 accessories for iPod, incredibly thriving ecosystem, "they announce products even before we want them to. It's so funny." -Now to talk about iPod stuff: Latest NPD data is from July, iPod holds 73.4 percent of the market

-iTunes 8 is available today as a free download -"Boom," creates a genius playlist that go with the song you're playing -Going back to music, playing John Mayer (Gravity), just go down to the bottom and push the genius button -Demoing HD TV shows right now (The Office) -Now Steve is Demoing the Genius feature ("just one click!") and iTunes

-As people keep using it, Genius keeps getting smarter and smarter, sends back down results -But it's not just info from you, Apple will combine it with knowledge of millions of other iTunes users as well -It's all voluntary, your library will send info into the cloud (anonymously) with track names, how many plays, etc. -How's this all work? iTunes Store is in the cloud, added "Genius Algorithms" -Genius sidebar makes recommendations from iTunes Store of songs you might want to buy -Genius: automatically make playlists from songs in your music library that go great together -New browsing feature -HDTV shows -Accessibility -Genius -Tons of new stuff -Biggest thing with iTunes today is iTunes 8, next major release -All NBC's great shows are coming back not only in SD, but in HD as well -NBC is coming back to iTunes -HD shows are $2.99 and you can watch them on the computer (not just Apple TV like movies) -Adding new content to iTunes: adding HD TV shows -This has enabled Apple to become the #1 music distributor in any format! -Over 65 million accounts in iTunes right now -Music: let's start with iTunes -"Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" -Steve Jobs is out, "We've got some really exciting stuff to share with you"

-We're in, waiting for the event to start. Apple is cracking down on photography from the main area, so we'll have to see about photos. (There's a photo pit, but we're only allowed one spot today.) It's getting dark!

Original post:

It's Tuesday, September 9, which means Apple's special event is mere hours away. We have touched down in San Francisco and are preparing for what we (and most others) believe will be a very iPod-focused event. This is the post that will contain all of our live event coverage when it kicks off at 10am PDT, so keep checking back here for our updates before and during the event. Let's rock it!

A shot of press outside the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, waiting for Let's Rock to begin:

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui